Mish Mash 12 (Rocky Balboa, Nine Months, Putney Swope, The Dirty Dozen)

Rocky Balboa

Better than I remembered.  It’s so endearing and thoughtfully put together.  Yea I know it’s the same basic idea we’ve seen five times before but the unforgettable characters and the devotion to making all aspects ooze with quality is magical.  So few series can pull that off.

And older Rocky is even more interesting than younger Rocky with all of his hard earned wisdom.  You know this guy’s been through some shit but he keeps on fighting.  There’s a great quote in here that defines the movie perfectly: “It ain’t about how hard you hit.  It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.”  Rock keeps going no matter the challenges, no matter what life throws at him.  Adrian’s dead, Paulie is still an asshole that leans on his brother-in-law tremendously, his son is uneasy about being in the shadow of a boxing legend and he feels compelled to help anyone in need.  So seeing the character cope with all this and still be as strong and steady as he is thirty years later is inspiring.

This is a feel good movie that tugs effectively at the ol’ heartstrings.  It’s a wonderful installment that shouldn’t be overlooked.

Nine Months

Couple of weird things here: Hugh Grant (Extreme Measures) says “sorry” approximately 837 times, Grant being a child therapist (with apparently only one patient) who doesn’t really want to have kids is more than a bit much, the word “fuck” is said three times (including yelled angrily twice) and this is a PG-13 romantic/family comedy.

More to that last point probably the funniest aspect of the film is the shocking amount of vulgarity.  A lot of the actual jokes fall flat but stuff like having two grown men beat the shit out of a Barney the dinosaur look-a-like and giving little kids lines like “I removed the victim’s brains with an ice cream scooper” is harder than what it feels like the movie was aiming for.  I mean there’s just so much cursing.  More shits and assholes than you’d ever think.

The last half hour is downright hilarious though when Julianne Moore’s (The Hand That Rocks the Cradle) water breaks and things kick into high gear.  Grant keeps nearly killing people with his car on the way to the hospital and ends up giving all his injured victims a lift.  So even though he’s a terribly reckless prick he does the right thing by giving some help.  Then after that Robin Williams (One Hour Photo) has to deliver two babies at once but, again, there are barriers.  The first is he’s Russian and his English is bad so he can’t give the proper instructions.  On top of that he’s mainly trained in delivering monkey babies, not human ones.  And to pile more shit on Hugh Grant and Tom Arnold (True Lies) are verbally and physically fighting with each other in the delivery room and getting in the doctor’s way.  It’s total fucking chaos.  But believe it or not this cluster fuck of a premise works and at least we’re given a fun wacky ending to an otherwise kinda bland picture.

Putney Swope

During a big meeting the head of an advertising agency suddenly dies on the boardroom table.  The rest of the execs decide to take a vote right then and there to see who should continue to lead the company.  They end up accidentally electing Putney Swope (Arnold Johnson (Menace II Society)), the only black exec in the room.  He changes everything up by switching the name of the company, hiring almost all black people, and creating ridiculous nonsensical ads.

The movie is an art piece with not exactly a linear story line and all sorts of stream of consciousness type stuff thrown in.  Like the company puts its money in a giant glass box, or a photographer looking for work pitches himself with the same lines in multiple scenes, or there’s one ad that shows a young woman dancing in a totally filthy alley to some groove rock track and she only pauses to say “you can’t eat an air conditioner”.  I think writer/director Robert Downey Sr. wanted to show how terrible the marketing business was so all of the characters are either crooks, ignorant or mean spirited.  Nothing really adds up in this world he created except for a clear dislike of big business manipulating the public.

Overall I liked it but it’s a little out there for me.  It’s difficult to get your arms around which is definitely not a bad thing.  Maybe what’s nagging at me is the message is too in your face.  This extreme approach to get that message out there is interesting though.

The Dirty Dozen

Wow, what a crazy violent movie.  The premise has to do with a secret military operation during WWII where the allies recruit twelve imprisoned soldiers, whip them into tip top shape and sneak them behind enemy lines to execute a suicide mission.  It’s an excellent pulpy idea that gets the juices flowing.

Everyone is perfectly cast, from Lee Marvin (Point Blank) as the hardcore yet ominously witty Major who leads the squad, to the ever stoic Charles Bronson (Death Wish 3), to the meek Donald Sutherland (Backdraft), to the level headed Jim Brown (Original Gangstas), to the anxious and charismatic John Cassavetes (Rosemary’s Baby), they’re all fantastic.  You really get to know these characters and by the time the big assignment comes you’re seriously emotionally attached.

And man the ending is something else.  Our guys must infiltrate a remote French hotel that the Nazis have seized and are using for their own swanky parties.  They gotta sneak around and plant explosives so they can blow the place up and then get the hell outta dodge.  The whole thing is methodical, tense and builds well but then blam, the entire operation goes off the fuckin’ rails.  I don’t wanna say anymore because you should really check it out.  One of the best finales in cinema.

I can’t believe it took me this long to get to this one.  It’s one of the most badass bastards I’ve ever run into.  Watch it.